


Public Displays of Affection

by mechanicaljewel



Series: Pride [3]
Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Coming Out, Community: indeedsir, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-20
Updated: 2006-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicaljewel/pseuds/mechanicaljewel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're never too old to be proud of who you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Public Displays of Affection

**Author's Note:**

> A direct sequel to “Wooster Pride”. For some reason there was an influx of requests for this sequel, which wasn’t much beyond notes scrawled in last year’s calculus notebook. Now it has been digitized for your enjoyment (hopefully). I borrowed Annie from magegirl8, who also betaed for me. Also, it seems that lucylou and I came to the same conclusion about dear Cyril Bassington-Bassington.
> 
> The event Bertie and Jeeves attend really happened. Thus, they are both very long-lived, for this fic takes place in summer 1972.

The only disappointing thing about the Crown coming to its senses and legalising consensual sensual relations between chaps is that it took so dashed long and now there’s no one to tell.

For a long time after Reginald and I married (and we are married, even if it takes those blighters in Parliament another eighty years to figure that one out) the only fantasy left for me to have was gathering all the old school chums, assorted chaps from the Drones, all manner of aunts and distant relations, and (most important) every woman I had ever been engaged to, and putting them all in the same room. Then, Reginald and I would stand on a platform in the middle, and I would deliver a stirring speech telling everyone that the man they all knew as Jeeves my valet, was now known to me—and henceforth, to them—as Reginald my husband, and they could bloody well hang if they disapproved for any reason, be it either for being of different classes or of the same sex. After all, no one disapproves if it’s two people of the same class and different sexes. And then I would effortlessly clear the room of nay-sayers by kissing Reginald until I felt like stopping. 

Sometimes in my fancy there would be a wedding cake (with a little marzipan couple of Bertram and Reginald right on top) and those who remained would be welcome to partake of it. If no one remained, Reginald and I would still manage to put it to good use. Those fancies tended to be my favourite.

But the fear of legal retribution was admittedly only one of the things that prevented our big “coming out” party, as I believe current slang has it. At the end of the day, most of my old chums had either passed away or simply moved on and touch was lost. Reginald, however, thinks that at least a few of my friends must have at least suspected. He reminded me of my last conversation with Aunt Dahlia on her death bed about twenty years ago. 

It was some cancer or other, and rather than subject herself to a slew of highly experimental tests, she decided she would go quietly. One day we visited her and after some small talk and pleasantries, she addressed Reginald.

“You will look after him, when I’m gone, won’t you, Jeeves?” She stretched a hand out to him and he took it

He looked sadly but lovingly at her. He knew how much she meant to me. “Always, madam.” He looked at me and more love grew in his eyes. 

She looked at me, and then at him looking at me, and smiled. “Of course. Of course.”

I knew I had to tell her. For the life of me, I wouldn’t be able to tell you why, but there you are. I took her other hand and said, “Aunt Dahlia, I… I don’t want to say anything that might upset you, but… well, Jeeves and I—that is to say Reginald and I…”

She laughed, and I stopped, perplexed. “Bertie, you silly young thing,” she said. “I may be ill, but I have never been blind, and certainly not in the past twenty years.”

I was stunned. I mean, I suppose of all aunts to know about us, Dahlia would be the one of my choosing. She wasn’t always going on about “the Wooster name” like Aunt Agatha…

But that was a while ago and there’s no point in dwelling. The point Reginald was trying to make was that it does seemed dashed suspicious when two birds who have lived together for upwards of thirty years pass through their fifth and sixth decades with nary a woman in sight. Not to mention the practice of having a valet had fallen out of favour at the end of the last war. And come to think of it, I seem to recall Reginald intimating his belief that several of our newer neighbours had come to the correct conclusion about the circs. of our relations. Something about a conversation he’d had with the doorman…

Actually, now that the facts of my life are laid out in this tableau, I wonder how anybody could not know. Dashed decent of them not to call the rozzers on us then, back when they could.

_But they can’t anymore, can they?_  I thought, as I pecked a good morning kiss on Reginald’s cheek, having finally gotten out of bed this fine noon. I found him in the kitchen making lunch, as he had long since stopped consenting to serving me breakfast past 11 ante meridian. It was a compromise, like one must have in a marriage: he wouldn’t make me get up for breakfast, but I would not expect to be fed breakfast. Although, I could tell this caused his old feudal spirit to act up, because he always managed to work in eggs and b. into whatever dinner he prepared. In all fairness of course, it was usually his fault when I woke up at so late an hour these days, the rebellion of age against exertions, though said e.’s were not quite so common as they once were. But last night was one of them, so no matter what meal I ate then I would be happy.

“Awake at last, darling?” he teased me gently as I slipped my arms around his waist. He wiped his hands of sundry foodstuffs on a tea towel before returning the embrace.

“That’s quite enough from you, my dear,” I scolded as I snuggled into his warm chest. “Please tell me there’s tea.”

“Of course there is. And I will have it ready with lunch in a few moments. However, I heard the post come about five minutes ago...”

“Say no more. Bertram will see it done.” And I pecked him again on the lips, and biffed off to get the post. Not a moment after I had retrieved it from the door, there came a knock. I vaguely wondered who it could be, when I opened the door and found myself faced with the dreamy, smiling visage of the girl from down the hall. She was one of those flower child types, a girl of about 17. Many fellow residents voiced their dislike of her and their desire for her to move on to one of those communes. As it was, she lived here with her parents, who were bang alongside the idea of self-expression and creativity in dress. I wish they would teach Reginald this, if only to vindicate myself after decades of having suffered the loss of my more interesting sartorial choices. Personally, anyway, I liked her, even though we had never spoken. She reminded me of my great-niece Annie, who I hadn’t seen in some time, since she had moved to India to find spiritual answers to deep questions. Namely why the Beatles broke up.

“Oh, hello, what?” I greeted this other girl. “May I help you?”

“You’re Bertie, right?” she asked, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.

“Yes, that is to say…yes,” I said, slightly flummoxed by her familiarity.

“I’m Butterfly.”

“Oh?” was all I could think to say.

“We’ve never spoken before.”

“No, I don’t suppose we have.”

“No one really speaks to anyone. Not any more”

“Well, quite.”

“Anyway, this fell out of your post slot.” She held out a bit of newsprint. I turned furiously pink when I realized that it was that new periodical I had decided to subscribe to, called  _Gay News_ . I quickly snatched it from her and folded the title out of sight. I tried to look casual, but she just kept standing there.

“Yes, well, er, thank you.”

She kept smiling at me. “The Man is realizing he can’t stop the flow of Love.” I could hear the capitalization.

“Well, er, no, I suppose he can’t.”

“Free and open love is the way of the future.”

“Jolly good.”

“Don’t be afraid to show it.”

“Erm, well, yes, I’ll keep it in mind.” I was beginning to get the impression that she had no intention of leaving presently. I reached over to the vase by the door, pulled out a daisy and handed it to her. “Thank you, then.”

Her attention was now fully on the daisy. “Far out,” she said. Then she snapped off a bit of the stem, tucked the blossom behind her ear, and then held up two fingers. Since I couldn’t remember if it meant ‘victory’ or ‘peace’ or something else entirely by this point, I refrained from returning the gesture, for fear of doing it wrong. She didn’t seem to notice and she turned away and wandered down the hall.

“Rummy,” I muttered, and headed to the dining room, where Reginald was just finishing setting out dinner. I placed most of the post on the sideboard, but retained the bit of newsprint. He had just finished pouring the tea when I sidled up to him and extracted a kiss, which helped restore my sense of normalcy.

“Was there anything of note in the post?” Reginald asked as we took our seats.

Deciding against telling him about the whole episode with Butterfly, rather wanting to put it out of my mind, I pulled out  _Gay News_ . “Well, the newsletter I subscribed to came.”

Reginald glanced at it with a withering look (he’d gotten more expressive in our later years), pursed his lips and said, “Mmm,” as he dug into his vegetables.

“Why this ‘mmm,’ dear?” I asked innocently, though I already knew the answer.

“Darling, I explained this when we first heard of this newsletter’s founding.”

“Well, explain it again.” I suspected him of having hidden reasons, and wanted to see if they would slip out this time ‘round.

He sighed almost imperceptibly, and put down his fork prior to launching into a quite long illumination on his stance. “My reasons are manifold. First, I simply object to this word ‘gay’. While an improvement on the epithet ‘invert’ or ‘queer’, it tends to evoke solely the image of the more flamboyant of our sort, which represents so few of us. I fail to understand why the word ‘homosexual’ is insufficient. It is accurate, as well as scientific, which would subtly remind the general populace of the biological basis for our nature. If we must have slang attributed to us, why not ‘Uranian’, with its classical and  _fin-de-siécle_  connotations, as well as its parallel to the word ‘Lesbian’? Secondly, I have not been involved in the homosexual subculture at large for some decades, and you were hardly ever involved in it, as you did not realise that your aversion to women stemmed from a supressed attraction to men until you realised that you loved me. Therefore, I see little reason in spending our remaining years living vicariously through the younger generation.”

This was quite a lot of information to take in at once, and his distaste for the wording of half the title of the paper was news to me, but I still found something to say. “See Reginald, I’d have to disagree with you on that. I think that because of my lack of involvement in the greater, as you say, Uranian community, I should see how it’s doing now, so I don’t feel I’ve missed anything.”

“Bertram, I would be most distressed if you came to feel regret for how you spent your younger days ignorant of your nature. After all, it was your charming innocence that I fell in love with. You were so much different from the other men I met, because you hadn’t become cynical or self-loathing, nor numbed yourself from any deep-seated shame with alcohol and promiscuity.”

He had never told me that before, and it left me quite speechless. But finally I said softly, “Darling, I could never feel regret for the way my life’s gone. I have the most loving and devoted partner a man could want. But…” I sighed and made my confession. “Remember back when our relations were first legalised, and we had Cyril Bassington-Bassington and his Stuart over to celebrate? And he babbled on about his near scrapes with the law and club raids in New York? At the time I found it all fairly dull, especially since 90 percent of the stories ended up just being some other chap deciding to yell ‘The cops are coming!’ in a crowded room of homosexuals for a lark.

“But after a while, I started wondering however everyone else was taking this newfound freedom. I mean, everyone’s got to have a story, and most probably less dull than Cyril’s. I guess I just thought this would be a good way to hear a few of them.” I paused again. “I wouldn’t mind telling people our story. I mean, I’ve written memoirs aplenty, but none of them show the complete picture. I’ve always wanted to…” I trailed off, thinking about the absurd little fancy I mentioned at the beginning of this manuscript.

Reginald reached across the table and took my hand. I looked up and met his gaze. No words came to mind, but they weren’t necessary. And when the moment was over, he brought my hand to his lips, kissed it, and then set it down. We resumed our usual breakfast-lunch comportment, and I open the periodical in question, perusing it while I tucked into Reginald’s remarkable fare.

It wasn’t long before I found something within the confines of newsprint that was far more intriguing than any other chap’s memoir. But I had to stifle any cry of excitement, as I did not wish to disturb the recent peace just yet, and this item of interest most certainly would do so.

~ ~ ~

Three days later, I had still not broached the topic with Reginald, though Lord knows I wanted to. I had been in such a state of agitation, it could only have been reasons known only to Reginald why he did not question me about said s. of a. What with all the tossing and turning in bed, the cracked tea cup, and the playing of Christmas tunes on the piano in the middle of June—well, I must say, if he wasn’t merely waiting me out, I’d have to assume he’d stopped loving me. A preposterous notion! you cry. And indeed, I was inclined to agree with you, but just to be sure, I decided to broach the subject with my significant other.

“Reginald, you still love me, right?” I asked, as we lay like spoons at the end of the third day.

He seemed slightly taken aback by the question, as the rhythm of his breath against the back of my neck skipped a beat. He then answered, “Bertram, I must assume that there is another, more pertinent question attached to the one you just posed, because that one is, and there is no other word for it, silly.”

“So you do still love me?” I hazarded.

He made a sound that was halfway between an exasperated groan and an incredulous chuckle. “Of course, darling. I believe I informed you of that fact twice today alone. If this is what has been distracting you for the past few days, allow me to reassure you. I would do anything in the world for you. I live for your happiness.”

And without thinking, I solved the problem that had been plaguing my mind. I rolled over to face him, and asked, “Would you take to the streets? To show you love me, I mean. If the opportunity came up—” I started floundering, but Reginald brought me back up for air with his breathtaking kiss.

“Yes, darling, of course I would,” he said after we broke the kiss, stroking my back.

I wiggled my eyebrows at him and said, “I think I shall hold you to that.” I then disengaged myself slightly, so that I could reach into the drawer of my nightstand. I pulled out  _Gay News_ , and showed him exactly what had been on my mind. “They’re planning a march. Well, more of a parade really, but anybody that wants to be in it can be, and well, I’d really like to.” My voice had gotten faster and quieter as that sentence progressed, to the point that that last bit was near whispered.

Reginald remained quiet, in intense concentration as he studied the article announcing the parade. Then he spoke softly, “You understand that taking part in this event could make us targets of violence?”

I nodded. “But, you’ve always been able to get us out of sticky situations,” I said cheerfully, though I was slightly more concerned than I let on. Then I thought of Butterfly. Not everyone disapproved.

He sighed, then turned and smiled gently at me. “Well, I cannot go back on my word. I will take to the streets for you, Bertram.”

“And I for you,” I breathed, grinning quite stupidly I know. We kissed again and settled in for the night. I curled into his chest and felt his heart pounding.

~ ~ ~

So on the morning of July 1st, Reginald and I made our way to Soho Square, where the parade was to start. He had not attempted to unpack any machinations from his bag of tricks to prevent us from taking part in the event, which I hoped meant that he had really taken to the idea of taking to the streets in the name of his love for me. He knew, of course, that I needed no grand displays. In fact, I was surprised he hadn’t dismissed my words to that effect as a silly ploy; in fact, I considered them even worse than if Mrs. Bingo and Madeleine Spode, née Bassett, had written a novel together. 

Now, hang on. Did they? I feel like they did. Must remember to ask Reginald. He’s long since stopped hiding his stash of Mrs. Bingo’s books.

Nevertheless, out of concern in re. acts of v. he had repeatedly told me that if I decided that I’d rather not take part, he wouldn’t think any less of me. And indeed I had second, third, and fourth thoughts, but the stiff upper lip prevailed. So there we were in Soho Square, wearing green carnations to suit Reginald’s Uranian sensibilities. I had asked him that morning if he thought the younger generations would be wearing them as well.

“I think it unlikely. However, they will probably recognise them, as Oscar Wilde remains a symbol of the Cause.”

“Jolly good.” Then as an afterthought I asked him, “Do you think they’ll be wearing any other emblem? After all, movements have to have a symbol to rally under.”

He pursed his lips and began pinning the blossom onto his beloved, “I think the pink triangle to be the most likely.”

“Where do you suppose they got that idea?”

He told me.

But again I am digressing! Back in Soho Square, I was amazed to see the number of men (and women!) who had shown up to take part in the parade and show their support. I thought there must have been almost a thousand people, though Reginald estimated it closer to seven hundred. While we were among the oldest, quite the range of ages was present, down to small children with their same-sexed parents. I must have looked longingly at the little tykes, because Reginald squeezed my hand and smiled apologetically. He knew I loved children, though we both knew I was better as the fun uncle. It had taken a week’s experiment for him to prove that to me, which is a tale for another time. Perhaps I’ll let him tell that one. 

Most surprisingly, it seemed almost everyone wanted to talk to  _us_ , asking how long we’d been together, and our pre-legalisation experiences. For once in my life I felt like a wise sage instead of a silly blighter I am, though Reginald tells me Plato would consider me wise for recognizing that I am a silly blighter. I said Plato was the real fathead if he would consider me wise. 

The parade itself was exhilarating. As Reginald anticipated, there were hecklers off to the side, but no one got violent, and we all barely paid them heed. All I knew was that I was walking down Oxford Street, openly hand-in-hand with the man I loved. There was music and confetti, and by the time we got to Hyde Park, the end of the parade route, I could have walked another ten miles, though I knew age would have prevented it. Reginald gave me the impression that he too wished to display his affection for me further, but in a far more private way.

He pulled me along and we freed ourselves from the crowd to a bench on the periphery. We sat down and had just moved to embrace one another, when I heard a voice I had thankfully not heard in some time.

“Bertie!” called the unmistakable sugar-puffed voice of Madeleine Spode,  _née_  Bassett. I looked up to see her charging over to interrupt our public private moment. “How long has it been? How on Earth are you?” she twittered.

“What ho, Madeleine,” I said, trying to be enthusiastic, though it wasn’t working. She didn’t seem to notice. “It’s been since Spode’s funeral thirty-odd years ago, and I have been doing swimmingly since.” She hadn’t acknowledged Reginald yet, so I change the subject to one of my favourites. “You remember Jeeves?”

“Oh yes, of course! I don’t suppose he’s still with you—”

Well, I say, not even Reginald could let that stand, and so he gave his ever familiar cough.

She started, and then did a double take. “My word, Jeeves! I do apologise for not recognising you, but I never imagined…” She took a dramatic pause, and then looked up at me with her familiar soppy gaze. “So you never married, Bertie?”

I knew at the moment her mind was filling with all the words of consolation she intended to pass on for breaking my heart all those years ago, how she would have been glad to marry me after the proper mourning period for Spode, if only I had been brave enough to call her, and that we could go get married right then and spend our remaining years together—

I retched inwardly. Then it dawned on me that here was my chance to live out even the slightest part of my fancy. After all, there was no fiancée I wanted to parade Reginald around more than Madeleine.

“Actually,” I replied, “Yes, I did,” as I slid my arm around Reginald’s waist and placed my head on his shoulder. He then surprised both of us by pressing a kiss to the top of my head. I fixed my gaze on Madeleine, revelling in her reaction. She was left utterly speechless, gawping like a fish. She then turned around to look at the parade crowd, and her silly mind finally made the connection.

“You mean, you? And…”

“Reginald? Yes, quite. For about forty-five years now.”

“But, I thought you loved me back then?”

And finally I got to say words I had always longed to say. I lifted my head off of Reginald’s shoulder, and looked her square in the eye. “Madeleine, old girl, I never loved you. Not that I didn’t like you,” I hastened to add, in deference to the Code of the Woosters, “but I never wanted to marry you. I couldn’t love you that way. And frankly, I’m glad of it.” And with that, I dropped my head back down on to Reginald’s shoulder.

“But, Bertie—True love…”

“Is precisely what this is.”

After several more moments of wide-eyed bafflement, she finally understood. “Why how marvellous!” she cried. “How remarkable! And I thought I understood love in all its forms, only to find that there are more of them than I thought! Though, I admit, I don’t know quite what to make of it.”

“Never mind that, old thing! Tell your friends! Any and all of our mutual acquaintances who yet live and with whom you are still in contact! Hurry, there’s no time to lose!” I spoke with such vigour that she became flustered and actually biffed off, muttering something about finding a telephone box.

Reginald finally spoke, “I must say, that is quite a load off my mind.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, nestling into his shoulder.

“I have lived in constant fear these past three decades that Countess Sidcup would one day swoop in and marry you against your wishes,” he said, raising his eyebrows at me.

“Tchah, Reginald. I may be a preux chevalier, but you are more conniving than a woman when your Bertram is in danger of losing his virtue to unscrupulous suitrixes.”

We sat silently, entwined and contended, just watching all of our fellow parade-goers. Then he spoke again.

“I’m glad you wanted to come.”

“You make it sound like it was you who had to convince me.”

“Who do you think contrived for Butterfly, with her modern attitude toward love, to deliver the newsletter?”

“Good Lord, I do need to get up earlier if I want to avoid having one pulled over on me. So how much did she do it for?”

“Bertram, you forget the young people’s attitude toward money. She did it for the millet casserole recipe given to me by John Lennon.”

I broke away and turned to stare him in the eyes. “When did you meet John Lennon? And where was I?” He knew I loved the Beatles, and even he was not immune to their later, more sophisticated songs.

He chuckled, and pulled me in to kiss my forehead. “I have never met John Lennon, or any of the Beatles, for that matter. I just told Butterfly that was who had given it to me. In fact it had been given to me by Annie that time, when, in a moment of madness, I offered to learn to make her favourite foods.”

“Was it really that bad?”

“Absolutely unpalatable.” He shook his head and gave a slight shudder.

I curled back into him, and asked, “Darling, if you wanted to come, why didn’t you just say so?”

He reached up and started stroking my hair. “To be quite honest, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to come. I was truly concerned about the negative consequences of being so public. So I decided that if you wanted to do it, I would, but I wanted you to think it was your idea.”

“Butterfly seemed to think you wanted her to convince me.” I gave him a teasing squeeze.

“I promise I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Reginald,” I said in my sternest voice, turning my face towards his.

“Yes, darling?” he said, looking like a puppy who knew his master wouldn’t scold him because he looked so adorable covered in the spaghetti he had just knocked over.

“I believe we came over here for a specific purpose.”

“Indeed, sir,” he replied, and then silenced my indignation with a most satisfying kiss.

_~Fin~  
_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it’s not too much of a stretch that Bertie and Jeeves would be spry enough to march in a parade while in their 70s. Can we chalk that up to Jeeves being Jeeves and him controlling every aspect of Bertie’s life?


End file.
